SPRING CLEANING
As we clean up from this historic, wet, and snowy winter, our year has only just begun here at the Mother Lode Land Trust. We have already hosted several public events this year, despite the rain. Now, this beautiful Spring and the upcoming Earth Day have brought more opportunities for outings. At our newly acquired Erickson Ranch Preserve in Sutter Creek, we are co-sponsoring the Mother Lode Earth Day 5K race. This is a partnership with Amador Trail Stewardship and the Amador Highschool Environmental Club. We are thrilled to also co-sponsor another Earth Day event with the Tuolumne County Land Trust, a beautiful wildflower hike at Ratto Ranch near Sonora. Lastly, at our own C&C Ranch Preserve, we are holding our first annual Campfire Stories Event. This event will provide a unique story-telling and live music experience at the C&C ranch in Jackson. This is part of our work to get many more people out on the land and aware of our Land Trust work. As we work to get more access to the community, we are also working to help conserve more important working lands across our region.
One example of our most recent work is the above-mentioned, Erickson Ranch Preserve. This property was transferred to us from Caltrans as a mitigation property for the Sutter Creek bypass environmental impacts. One of our first challenges at Erickson Ranch was dealing with the debris left over from previous oak planting and other restoration projects that had been scattered across the property. Unfortunately, most of the planted oaks died, leaving a lot of plastic pipe, rebar, and fencing across the property. Luckily, with help from our volunteer force and our new Stewardship Director, Amanda Brashear, we have begun to clean up this property.
“Over 30 volunteers removed fencing, netting, rebar, irrigation pipe and other debris totaling 65 volunteer hours. They collected enough debris to fill a 40-yard dumpster! We truly appreciate our hard-working volunteers, and so will the future visitors of Erickson Ranch. Thank you. “
We have also been partnering with the Amador Trail Stewardship Group to help fix and restore the trails that have been developed there. It is wonderful to see this land being used by the public.
We are delighted to announce that we have received funding approval from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy to acquire an additional 303 acres near our existing 575-acre Long Gulch Ranch Preserve near Groveland, and although we still need to raise another $650,000 in funding, we are hopeful about making this project come alive. This land offers important Great Gray Owl habitat, magnificent valley oaks, and excellent recreational opportunities. Once slated for suburban development it will now be forever protected as open space.
In Calaveras County, we are in the final stages of securing a conservation easement on a historic working cattle ranch. In the coming months, we will begin doing extensive outreach in El Dorado through Tuolumne counties to let land owners and the public alike learn more about the great opportunities the Mother Lode Land Trust has to offer. If you are interested in helping with our current outreach project or any of our other programs, give us a call or shoot us an e-mail. As spring turns quickly to summer, we look forward to a very productive year of land conservation!
